


hollow eyes and the poppy-red sky

by thepensword



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Duck comes back to Kepler, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post Episode 28, TAZ Amnesty, This Is Not A Happy Fic Folks, but mostly hurt :(, spoilers for Episode 28
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 04:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19266106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepensword/pseuds/thepensword
Summary: The first thing he notices when he steps through the doors of Amnesty Lodge is that Aubrey's face is hollow and her hands are covered in blood.





	hollow eyes and the poppy-red sky

**Author's Note:**

> tw: mentions of blood, injury, and death
> 
> not so sure about the writing of this one or about the characterizations but eh im sad just take it
> 
> EDIT: [cloakedrabbit](https://cloakedrabbit.tumblr.com) on tumblr made some [beautiful (and heartbreaking) art for this fic!](https://cloakedrabbit.tumblr.com/post/186132820597/some-sads-based-on-this-fic-i-read-by-thepensword) go check it out!

Aubrey’s face is hollow.

It’s the first thing he notices when he steps through the door of the Amnesty Lodge with an uncharacteristically quiet Minerva at his back, even considering the red sky and the fallen mountain and the sirens wailing in the distance. Aubrey’s face is hollow and drawn, deep shadows falling beneath puffy eyes that are as orange as sunset.

There’s blood on her hands, too, and for a brief moment of panic Duck thinks it’s hers. But despite her limp, the wound he spots on her leg looks mostly closed up, and aside from a few scrapes she looks unhurt. But her hands are covered in blood.

There’s quite a commotion going on in here. The Sylphs are moving around, frantically shoving things into bags with solemn and frightened looks on their faces. The door to the hot springs is open just a crack, as if whoever passed through it hadn’t had the presence of mind to make sure it latched, and through it he thinks he can hear someone crying. There’s a low buzz of chatter around the Lodge, intense and hushed conversation lending to an atmosphere of anxiety and quiet panic.

Jake Coolice turns and sees Duck at the door, and like a flipped switch the Lodge goes silent.

“Uh, hey guys,” says Duck. Behind him, Minerva says something about his troops and glorious battles and rousing speeches in the loudest whisper he’s ever heard but he’s not really paying attention, because Aubrey’s face is hollow and there’s blood on her hands.

(And he doesn’t see Ned anywhere.)

Aubrey looks up, and the expression on her face when she sees him is one of the most horrifying things he’s ever seen. It’s an expression of something already broken being shattered into even more pieces. It’s an echo of the look on her face when he found her after the incident with the jetpack and the pizza sign, like everything is ending and maybe it’s her fault. It doesn’t belong on that face, Duck thinks, that face that laughs and loves and jokes and is so young and bright. That face doesn’t deserve this darkness.

“Oh,” says Aubrey, and her whole body folds in on itself, shoulders curling inwards and shaking violently with sobs. Her chest heaves and tears run hot and thick down her face. “ _Duck._ ”

Duck doesn’t remember moving but he’s across the room in an instant, catching her before her legs can give way. The wound on the back of her calf is still sort of oozing a bit and doesn’t really look like something she should be standing on anyway, so he very carefully scoops her up into a bridal carry and walks her over to the couch. “Hey, Aubrey,” he says, and tries very hard to keep his tone casual. “What’s going on?”

She buries her face into his shoulder and clutches at the back of his shirt. He can feel her tears seeping into the fabric and none of it is making him any less worried. He glances over at Minerva, still standing at the door and looking very lost and very out of place, and sort of gestures with his chin for her to go sit down at one of the other chairs on the other side of the room where she’ll be out of the way for now. The Sylphs are looking at her strangely, but Duck can’t worry about that right now. In this moment, all he’s thinking about is Aubrey, and how she’s shaking in his arms.

Jane used to break down sometimes, when they were both younger, and he’d hold her like this, when she’d let him—before she decided coming to your older brother with your problems was too embarrassing—but it was never this bad. Upset Jane was never Broken Jane, and the awful thing is that the Aubrey he’s holding right now seems very, very close to Broken Aubrey, and he has no idea how to fix this. You can’t go fetch a cookie to give to Broken and promise to watch her favorite cartoon with her even though you’ve always hated it. You can’t just wait and ride out the storm, not when the storm is in her very core. This isn’t the same as I-got-a-B-in-my-best-subject-oh-god-I’m-stupid-and-worthless-what-do-I-do. Something unspeakable has happened.

Duck wonders where everyone else is, and why Aubrey is all alone like this. Where’s Mama? Where’s Barclay? Where’s Dani?

Where’s Ned?

“Hey,” says Duck, as soft and soothing as he can manage, and rubs his hand in circles on her back. “Aubrey. What happened?”

She shakes her head and cries harder. The feeling of dread in the pit of Duck’s stomach isn’t getting any better. Something really, really bad happened, and it’s not just the red sky and the fallen mountain. It’s not the orange eyes or the way the Sylphs are packing everything up. It’s something to do with the blood on her hands, and the people who are absent.

The door to the springs swings open and Barclay steps through it. Dani’s leaning against his side, wrapped in a bathrobe and wet hair dripping onto her shoulders. She’s shaking, too, eyes downcast and refusing to look at anyone.

Barclay sees Duck and his eyes are sad. He doesn’t say anything, just helps Dani through the lobby and onto the couch in the very corner of the room, mostly out of sight from the rest of the Lodge. He’s saying something to her, in a tone too quiet to hear, but she’s not really responding.

God, what happened?

“Duck,” sobs Aubrey. “Duck, it’s—it’s—”

“Shh,” murmurs Duck. He presses a kiss into her mess of curls like he used to do with Jane when she was little. “It’s okay, Aubs. It’s okay.”

Aubrey shakes her head vehemently. “It’s _not,_ ” she says. “It’s—it’s _not_ ”

“Alright,” says Duck. “Then it’s not. Can you tell me what happened?”

She makes a tiny sort of sound somewhere between a hiccup and a sob and sits back a bit, just so she can see into his face. Her chest is heaving with her jagged breaths and she looks as though it’s her that’s fallen to pieces, not Mount Kepler. “It’s. Duck, it’s _Ned_.”

“Oh,” says Duck, and his veins flood with ice. The blood on her hands. The look on her face, like that time with the jetpack and the pizza sign, after she thought she’d killed Ned. The way Ned looks at her sometimes, like she’s the manifestation of all his guilt, and like she’s too bright to risk hurting. Ned, who Duck hasn’t seen much of lately because he’s been too preoccupied with the shifter and his visions and who had looked so shaken last time he’d seen him.

Ned.

Ned is…?

Barclay crossed to the room at some point and is standing beside the couch, shoulders slumped and expression tired. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. Duck wonders distantly how many people Barclay’s lost in the past, and if it gets any easier after the first time. “There’s a lot you need to get caught up on.”

“Yeah,” says Duck, and holds Aubrey tight. Her head is back in his shoulder and her sobs have doubled again. There’s too much. The red sky, the fallen mountain, the blood.

And Ned.

Duck lowers his head until it’s pressed into Aubrey’s curls and takes a moment to breathe. And they hold each other like that, until they can’t anymore, until the sirens gets louder and they have to go, until the world’s insistent turning around them forces them out of stillness.

And the sky is red. And the mountain is fallen. And Aubrey’s face is hollow.

And Ned is gone.

  


**Author's Note:**

> ow
> 
> come cry with me on [tumblr](https://thepensword.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/thepensw0rd)


End file.
